


Significantly

by fresne



Category: The Fall (2006)
Genre: Dark Agenda, M/M, Podfic Available, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:57:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief interlude from the journey of the Wiseman's tattoo. No one lost their hats despite a brief plague of pirates. Also, the Statue of Liberty went for a walk. Luigi and the Indian traded significant looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Significantly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hokuto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/gifts).



> Yuletide Treat
> 
> [Podficed Significantly](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/significantly)  
> The following inspiration for this work and inspiration for my dialogue, where I am not directly quoting, because apt quotes are cool:
> 
> Can't say as I remember quoting, but if I did and I haven't attributed, let me know and I'll add it.

Luigi puffed on the stub of his short brown cigar. The cranky wind carried the white smoke away across the gray-green water to the close grouped buildings of the island of men’s hats. This was the island where Luigi had gotten his red wool hat many years before. This was the island where the Indian had gotten his green silk turban too. They were gifts.

Luigi had sold his hair to buy a long piece of green silk for a turban. Luigi gave the turban cloth to the Indian on All Souls Day. Smiled as the Indian wrapped the cloth in intricate patterns around his head. Inside each fold, the Indian had placed something that told a story. A piece of a fuse. A gold nugget. A flat piece of bread.

The Indian had sold his gold watch to buy a red wool hat. The Indian gave the hat to Luigi on All Souls Day. Rubbed his eyebrow, because he wasn’t sure that Luigi would like the hat, but he shouldn’t worried. Luigi loved his hat. Put it on his head and grinned wide enough to swallow all the Indian ocean and still have room for a dry desert. Luigi had given the Indian a significant look. The Indian had given one back.

They also gave each other small sweet oranges. The kind that ripened in the winter months and tasted a little like smoke and a little like sunlight and a lot like oranges.

They also gave each other tiny pieces of bread. The kind that could protect souls from things that ate souls and destroyed teeth, which was where they kept their strength.

This was because they were both in danger from a soul and tooth destroying pirate, who lived in the Badlands where the earth was striped in craggy bands of red and yellow and orange. The pirate had one leg and one eye and a mouth full of shark teeth. The pirate wanted their gold for himself.

They had found the gold in the Black hills. The Black hills were sacred to the Indian’s people. The Black hills were forested with thin dark green trees and red wild flowers where butterflies slept at night. Americana Exotica. Beautiful. The Black hills were the opposite of the Badlands.

Luigi and the Indian had met when Luigi came to the Black hills to blow up a mountain to carve a statue of a great Indian chief. The Indian in fact. Luigi had chomped on his cigar and lit his dynamite. He had grinned as he looked significantly at the Indian. Significantly, even though they had just met. The Indian had rubbed his eyebrow, because he wasn’t sure that dynamite was the best way to carve a mountain. Still, he’d looked significantly back.

That was how they discovered that the Black hills were full of gold. They also discovered that dynamite was a great way to carve a mountain.

The pirate, who loved gold more than life itself, swore that he would eat their souls with his shark’s teeth and take their gold.

So they gave each other their gifts, with possibly small kisses, and ate their oranges and soul protecting bread. Luigi had put on his hat and the Indian put on his turban with it green folds. They went into the Badlands to face the pirate.

The Indian held his curved his sword in his hand. Luigi loaded his gun with its fluted barrel.

The pirate had a thousand men, who sailed with him on the great green river that cut through the painted Badlands. The Indian looked significantly at Luigi, who took the five hundred men on the right. Luigi looked significantly at the Indian, who took the five hundred men on the left.

They all died horribly, but took everyone down with them. The pirate too. Luigi blew them all up. Except for the ones that the Indian killed with his curved sword.

After they got over being dead, Luigi said, “Is good plan. We still have our hats.”

The Indian shrugged. He was glad that they’d eaten the soul protecting bread, which had let them die and come back from the dead. He resolved to carry a great deal of the soul protecting bread with him always. He vowed that he, and anyone who was on a suicide likely quest with him, would eat that bread on a daily basis. Just in case.

Then the Indian handed Luigi a match. Luigi blew up a mountain to celebrate not being dead.

That was many years ago. Long before Butterfly reef and their joint, but not mutually exclusive, vows to be the one person to kill Governor Odious.

That was then.

More currently, Luigi toyed with two or three or twenty-five one minute fuses that hung from the red stick dynamite that he had in his great yellow coat. He kept them there for emergencies or to light his cigars. He said, “The wiseman, he has us on a great wild gooses chase.”

The Indian shrugged and turned away as the slow moving ferry brought them closer to the Statue of Liberty. He wrapped a blindfold of orange raw silk around his eyes. He’d vowed not to look at another woman ever again after his tragic bride had tragically killed herself tragically in the labyrinth of despair. Since then, in keeping with his vow, he was very careful not to look at another woman. Even if that woman was a great metal statue for Liberty.

This was unfortunate because it was in that moment that the great statue, weary of standing with one foot forward on a small island in a very busy harbor took the next step. She stepped off of her platform and paused. She removed the people who were inside her head one by one.

Luigi laughed a great rolling laugh that made the red silk flames on the back of his long yellow coat ripple like, well, like flames.

The Indian saw this, because he had removed his blindfold in order to give Luigi a significant glance. Luigi smirked around his cigar and handed the Indian a sandwich. It was the Indian’s favorite kind of sandwich. Fried banana, battered onions and peanut butter.

Wallace, inside his bag, whined. This was also his favorite sandwich. Charles Darwin drank some tea from a silver flask. The Masked Bandit sighed and brooded over his dead twin brother. Otto did not brood over his dead brother. He stood with his arms on the railings and watched the Statue of Liberty step down into the grey-green water of the harbor.

The Wiseman ignored them. The tattooed map on his skin couldn’t let them linger just because a giant metal woman was wading her way to the shore.

The Indian rubbed his eyebrow and handed everyone in the party a piece of flat bread. Even the Masked Bandit’s daughter, who was currently hiding in the burlap sack with Wallace.

Luigi ate his bread with gusto, like he did everything. The Indian liked that about him. He gave Luigi a significant look, who gave the Indian one in return. The Indian put back on his orange silk blindfold. He liked how it felt. It clashed with his green silk turban.

Luigi laughed and they went below decks. Significantly.

**Author's Note:**

> It should be mentioned that the Indian does have a name. However, he requested that Roy (or Roy's subconscious) withhold that name from publication, as he would like to retain the rights to his story. Also, he would like to be played by Shah Rukh Khan when the movie of his life is made. Luigi has no opinions on who should play him. But he does love his hat.
> 
> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


End file.
